Sources claim you'll be able to pick up a MacBook Air for just $799 by Christmas.

Sources in Apple’s Taiwanese supply chain claim that the Cupertino company is gearing up to launch a cheaper $799 MacBook Air later this year that will decrease the price gap between the next-generation of Windows-powered ultrabooks. Although specifications are not mentioned in the report, sources say the notebook will make its debut during the third quarter.

Apple is reportedly planning to make things difficult for Intel, which has been heavily pushing ultrabook adoption. The chipmaker hopes that ultrabook prices will reach just $699 during the second half of 2012, giving some users a compelling reason not to splash out on a $999 MacBook Air. However, a $799 model could dash Intel’s hopes.

DigiTimes reports:

Apple is reportedly considering responding to the upcoming second-generation ultrabooks by launching a US$799 MacBook Air in the third quarter of 2012, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Although Acer has recently reduced its ultrabook shipment target, Intel continues to aggressively push ultrabooks and is aiming to have the devices priced at US$699 in the second half of the year. However, if Intel is unable to bring down ASPs to its goal, the price gap between ultrabooks and the US$799 MacBook Air may further postpone the time ultrabooks become standardized, the sources noted.

The cheapest MacBook Air is currently the 11.6-inch model priced at $999, which features just 64GB of storage. There’s almost no chance the it will make the notebook any smaller than that, but it could introduce a cheaper Core i3 processor to bring its price tag down.

About the author:

Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.

John Smyth

This story seems odd – Apple use Intel chips too so it shouldn’t matter to Intel whether people buy ultrabooks or cheap MacBook Airs – Intel win either way. However, it will matter to Windows since they would lose market share. Surely that should be the point of the story ?

Rich Holler

What a bunch of tripe! Why would Apple Give their Processor manufacturer a hard time? Apple marches to one tune and one tune only: GREED! That is why they don’t support their older gear! If they did, you’d not buy their newer lower quality, hotter burning, faulty graphics card using, and main board replacing (for too much money might I add), icrap!

Rich Holler

Have an older G5 tower, that is quad based, sold for over $2400 new in less than six years that Apple doesn’t support anymore! Am I angry about it? You bet! I have seen more Mac books and Mac book pro’s with burned out mainboards (they don’t disperse heat very well and get extremely hot). Apple is also planning on discontinuing the Mac Pro (their closest thing to the G5) in favor of forcing the industry to bend toward using “Thunderbolt” another throughput based piece of trash that Apple thinks will fix their money problems. Imagine that, since Steve Jobs died, their cockroaches have come out to feed off the consumer wallet! Just think of them cutting off their legacy products in favor of capital and you’ll see why it is that Windows beats them hands down. Windows supports their older products (to a much larger degree than Apple). That’s the reason Apple is in trouble! Those around them know that they can build a similar product cheaper… and so it goes…

InternDom

What a bunch of tripe! Why would Apple Give their Processor manufacturer a hard time? Apple marches to one tune and one tune only: GREED! That is why they don’t support their older gear! If they did, you’d not buy their newer lower quality, hotter burning, faulty graphics card using, and main board replacing (for too much money might I add), icrap!

Apple gives Samsung a hard time every day… Yet somehow they still have a great manufacturing partnership. It’s big business. This is what they do..

voloder

“Source: DigiTimes”

Please disregard this article.

voloder

Have an older G5 tower, that is quad based, sold for over $2400 new in less than six years that Apple doesn’t support anymore! Am I angry about it? You bet! I have seen more Mac books and Mac book pro’s with burned out mainboards (they don’t disperse heat very well and get extremely hot). Apple is also planning on discontinuing the Mac Pro (their closest thing to the G5) in favor of forcing the industry to bend toward using “Thunderbolt” another throughput based piece of trash that Apple thinks will fix their money problems. Imagine that, since Steve Jobs died, their cockroaches have come out to feed off the consumer wallet! Just think of them cutting off their legacy products in favor of capital and you’ll see why it is that Windows beats them hands down. Windows supports their older products (to a much larger degree than Apple). That’s the reason Apple is in trouble! Those around them know that they can build a similar product cheaper… and so it goes…

Can’t tell if trolling or just stupid…

EDIT: I’m wrong, sorry. You make a great point. Windows IS beating Apple hands down. That’s why Apple doesn’t even worry about its Mac line as much as its iOS line anymore and has $100b and almost $600/share. Yep, I’m sure Apple is quaking in their pants about Microsoft.

Tallest_Skil

DIGITIMES.

You guys must sell out cheap to keep reprinting this tripe.

Tallest_Skil

What the frick is this? I can’t sort by date added? Then don’t show it to me. Why the frick does clicking “Date Added” take me to a page with only a comment box?

And then actually trying to SUBMIT the comment box gives me an error.

Either take it away or fix it.

Wirehedd

“piece of trash that Apple thinks will fix their money problems.”

Ummm, not sure if you understand the term “money problems” as Apple has the exact opposite of money problems. They have in the range of 100 BILLION dollars in CASH on hand. That sounds like a “no problem” scenario to me.

“That’s the reason Apple is in trouble!”

Again, what trouble? The company is rolling in money, they have the most in demand products on earth and they all but command the Asian production infrastructure single handed.

TEKADDIKT

I can see Apple wanting to bring the price down to compete with cheaper (in both senses of the word) Windows-based Ultrabooks, but hopefully they won’t sacrifice quality in order to produce it. But if there’s a way, Apple will find it.

And according to other rumors, they’re trying to do the same thing with the iPad to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

manuelmorgado94

i think that a 799$ Macbook Air would sell a lot because it is a low price for a good computer, it would make sales of other computers go down for sure

Apple would make a lot of money also because of the economic crisis we live in